Hi all - to introduce myself, my name is Daniel. I go by shaforex on these threads (because why not, right? nobody uses their real names). I started my babypips account probably around 8 years ago and after a couple years of dipping in and out (never with real money) I found out that due to independence rules at my job at a Big-4 Accounting Firm I’m not allowed to have a leveraged account, so that put the damper on ever getting into forex.
[I]Fast forward to current day:[/I] I am a Director at the Firm and looking to leave/go my own way. I have enough set aside to trade full time without a salary for 6-8 month (of course with every month that goes by there will be less for me to use in my trading account). Scary notion, but I want to do it as a full time job and I feel like if I can devote full time to it, I can make it work.
I am still employed until July and plan to continue paper trading until then. I will then open a small account and trade real money I can afford to lose until I’m consistently profitable. Hopefully I succeed in doing that before 2017 is over, at which point I’ll trade with larger sums. The following bullets summarize my views/plans for now:
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[li]I treat this as a business. I am going to be an entrepreneur. My trading account is my customer and I need to provide value to my customer. It’s not a game.
[/li][li]I plan on being excruciatingly risk averse (stops at 1%-2% of my account per trade).
[/li][li]I am keenly aware of the need to be consistent with a strategy, and a simple one at that.
[/li][li]I am heavily focused on the psychology aspect of dealing with your emotions as you trade. Easier said than done, but I am aware of it and plan to focus on improving it as I start trading with real money.
[/li][li]I haven’t figured out what style, timeframes and pairs I will trade, but it will be technical analysis-driven.
[/li][li]I am in the US so limited by the brokers here. I opened a demo (and plan on it for my live trading) account with OANDA. I looked into ECN brokers, but prefer a reputable, regulated broker seeing as how my business depends on it. Damn you, US government, and your overburdening regulations!
[/li][li]I am still on the lookout for a professional, reputable, knowledgeable mentor. I’ve seen several names out there and each one seems to have his/her own baggage and hard to get an honest assessment. Plus I need to figure out my trading style first.
[/li][li]I don’t want to make the rookie mistakes if I can help it. That means scalping as a newbie (or even daytrading on 1-4 hour charts). On the other hand, as a full-time trader, I want to have sufficient trade setups so long-term trading is not for me either. I suspect it will end up being a combination of swing trading and short-term trading, perhaps focusing on 4-5 pairs and swing trading on those (e.g. have 4-5 open trades at any given point, roughly one per day) and spend the rest of the time (that I’m not finding my setup/timing my entry) backtesting strategies and practicing some more.
[/li][li]I know that it usually takes several years to become consistently profitable. I hope I’m not shooting myself in the foot here, but I would like to think that taking this seriously, as a full time endeavor - being acutely aware of rookie mistakes, money management, psychology and the like - I will achieve success quicker than the average joe. This is not a gamble. This is my future business. I’d like to think the statistics we see everywhere do not apply if the appropriate level of intentionality is applied.
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I am very eager to hear from anyone and everyone who can contribute constructively about how I can make this leap from full time accountant to full time trader a successful one. In my first days with babypips (2009 onwards) I was guided by some very generous and knowledgeable forum members. I want to thank them for doing so, as it brought me back here all these years later. I want to thank all the rest of you who will help me along the way in advance.
Peace and prosperity to all!